10 things you need to know in markets today

Shoppers walk among Christmas lights at a shopping mall two days before Christmas Eve on December 22, 2015 in Berlin, Germany.Sean Gallup/Getty ImagesGood morning! Here are the 10 things you need to know in markets on Wednesday.

UK GDP figures are coming. Final estimates for third quarter growth are due at 9.30 a.m. GMT (4.30 a.m. ET), with economists expecting quarter-on-quarter growth to remain unchanged a 0.5% and year-on-year growth to remain at 2.3%. French GDP figures are also due at 7.45 a.m. GMT (2.45 a.m. ET).

Asian markets are muted. Japan's Nikkei is down 0.16% at time of writing (6.30 a.m. GMT/1.30 a.m. ET), the Hong Kong Hang Seng is up 1.20%, and the Shanghai Composite is up 0.46%, all with thin trade. US markets closed higher overnight, enjoying a long-awaited Santa Rally.

Tata Steel UK is in exclusive talks with Greybull Capital over a potential sale of its "Long Products Europe" business, offering a lifeline for several thousand jobs at UK steel plants currently earmarked for closure. The Telegraph reports that if the sale were to go ahead, it would include a number of UK-based assets, including Tata Steel UK's Scunthorpe steelworks, mills in Teesside and northern France, an engineering workshop in Workington, a design consultancy in York, and associated distribution facilities.

Goldman Sachs has added three new bankers to its inner circle. On Monday, CEO Lloyd Blankfein and President Gary Cohn announced in a memo, seen by Business Insider, that Gregg Lemkau, Marc Nachmann and Jim Esposito would be joining the firm's management committee.

Deutsche Bank has flagged as much as $10 billion (£6.74 billion) in total trades that may not have been vetted for money laundering as clients moved money out of Russia. Bloomberg reports that transactions under scrutiny include those in which trading in an account went consistently in one direction — primarily buy orders, for example — according to people familiar with the matter.

Five of the world's biggest investment banks paid no corporation tax in Britain last year despite making billions of pounds in profits. According to an analysis of the banks' corporate filings by Reuters, JP Morgan, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank AG, Nomura Holding and Morgan Stanley all said their main UK arms paid no corporation tax, The Independent reports.

The Pentagon and other US government agencies should complete a legislative proposal in coming weeks to let regulators block proposed mergers for national security reasons, instead of just antitrust concerns, a top official told Reuters on Tuesday. Defense Undersecretary Frank Kendall, who oversees arms weapons acquisitions and industrial base issues for the Pentagon, made the comments in an interview, after first mentioning the legislative push in September.